One of the most fascinating and useful features of online marketing and the technology that goes with it, is the ability to market to individuals “on the fly” with real-time marketing messages. Imaging being able to send messages to each individual customer that’s relevant to their needs and interests right then.

The idea is exciting, and one that you can be sure will add money to your bank account if you learn how to do it. One way to engage in real-time marketing is to use social media to listen to what is important right now to you target audience. Are they watching a specific show? Are they involved in a specific sport or news item of the week or day? If so, you can then guide your marketing efforts toward their interests.

* Listen – Set up alerts on Google Alerts, Twitter and other social media to find out when your brand, your competition’s brand, or items related to your brand are mentioned. You can devise marketing based on these mentions to offer the right products and services that your audience wants right now.

* Understand Your Industry – No matter what you are involved in, there is an entire industry surrounding what it is that you do. You should be monitoring the news in your industry to find out what the trends are now and in the future. You can devise marketing materials based on these trends and get ahead of the buzz with the right marketing materials that appear fresh and timely.

* Understand Your Audience – Just like with any type of marketing it’s imperative that you understand your audience. They are the key to what types of products and services you’ll offer, as well as how you’ll frame the marketing that you do to attract the buyers for your products and services.

* Prepare – It seems strange that you can prepare for “real-time” marketing, but you can. Get the technology in place such as remarketing programs, events that you know are happening such as the super bowl, or major college playoffs, or other events that you know are important to your audience. Be prepared to monitor the buzz and react to it. If you have a calendar of events and holidays that your audience may be interested in, you can be ready.

* Get the Technology – Figure out what technology you need in place to participate in real-time marketing. Remarketing technology, email marketing technology, pop-up ads, social media apps, and more all can work together to help you engage in real-time marketing on the fly. If you’re ready, with just a few clicks you can change an old pop-up or pop-under into something that mentions the happenings of the day.

* Create the Material – Get ready the tools of the trade to take advantage of events. Use email campaigns, blogging, events, tweeting, eBooks, PR, white papers, banner ads, apps, Google AdWords, social media listening, search engine optimization and more to be ready for the events in which you can capitalize on the current happenings to your audience which will help you boost sales.

* Renewed Customer Service – One often overlooked way to practice real-time marketing is within customer service. Whether it’s answering a question on Facebook, Twitter, or within your ticketing service, you have a huge opportunity to engage users in a profitable way when it comes to customer service and real-time marketing. You can empower customer service (or yourself if it’s just you) to offer specialized deals to individuals as the issue arises. You can also use these examples for content ideas to help answer questions in advance to newer customers.

* Content Ideas – Using social media to catch what the buzz is about your business is a great example of real-time marketing at work. You see the questions and what the audience is talking about on message boards and social media updates, and then use them to add to your FAQ or to create a special offer that your audience cannot resist. All of these efforts add to your bottom line and make your company that much more in demand.

When you look at these examples it’s likely you already do some real-time marketing without realizing it. But, if you do more real-time marketing you’ll increase lead acquisition, get higher conversions, and ultimately make more sales and earn more money because you are on the cutting edge of truly understanding your audience at a whole new level.